The sintering of ores is a main part of the iron and steel production via the blast furnace. The considered process converts a feedstock small in grain size into a product ready for reduction. On the other hand sintering is responsible for a considerable fraction of the emission of gaseous pollutants in integrated steel plants. More than half the amount of nitrogen oxides released into the environment originates from the sinter belt conveyor. In order to control these emissions, the exhaust gas has to be collected and treated under great effort. Dealing with this issue, the work at hand investigates into the mechanisms generating these gaseous emissions, especially sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. In order to do so, a number of experiments on the sintering of carbonatic iron ore were carried out. Sinter pot tests measured the influence of important process parameters (fuel content, basicity, differential pressure and air moisture) on the release of the considered pollutants. In addition a lab scale system for testing the sintering process was evaluated. With this so called sinter candle trails were performed to develop a method for the in-situ-reduction of nitrogen oxides. All these tests have proven already known correlations, but do also challenge current assumptions on the formation of pollutants.